North Texas Daily

According to a 2017 article by the Houston Chronicle, UNT was ranked eight for Texas universities with the highest amount of rape cases.

Though that was reported in 2017, there are still students who are assaulted on campus each year. It should also be noted that women are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted in college more than any other phase in life, according to a statistic provided by petersons.com. This doesn’t just pertain to female students, but it was found in another study by RAINN that 11.2 percent of all students will face sexual assault on campus either by incapacitation or physical violence.

Sexual assault is not the only problem that students face on campus as armed robbery has plagued students at UNT in the past. The Denton Record-Chronicle reported last year that a student was robbed at gunpoint by four men in his apartment. One of the four men carried the gun and struck him during the robbery.

While I concede that most people cannot take on a group of four grown men, I stand by my beliefs that the UNT Police Department should teach self-defense classes more often. Students have enough problems with finding a balance between school work, work and maintaining personal relationships that we shouldn’t have to worry about our personal safety in an environment meant to be a place where we build ourselves up for a future in our respective career fields.

A lot of people assume that martial arts is strictly meant to teach a person self-defense, but that is not the case at all. Martial arts is a contact sport, however it has more to offer than just the art of self-defense, it is also meant to instill discipline into its students. A good student of martial arts is a critical thinker. They know how to analyze situations and think their way out before resorting to physical violence. Before a student becomes a critical thinker, they are taught self-confidence and to grow more self-assured of their abilities in whatever martial art they’re learning.

The UNT Police Department can not only teach self-defense to students, but also provide useful advice on how to avoid danger. Though it might sound like common sense, avoid being alone in empty parking garages, taking shortcuts home made up of less populated streets and be attentive to all surroundings, especially at parties. The police can give us the tools to defend ourselves if the situation ever calls for it, but students should be taught how to avoid placing themselves in compromising situations.

Police can set up events or seminars to instruct students what to do if they are ever held up by a number of weapons or if they feel unsafe by their surroundings. Police are here to help, but there is so much more they can do other than being there to take reports of crimes that have already been committed. They should engage with the student body as often as possible to ensure maximum protection and to help make sure that we aren’t a victim in any scenario. With these self defense classes, it can give us these exact things to make sure we are safe on our own.

Featured Illustration: Miranda Thomas